I don't have a legal answer because IANAL, but starting with a US trademark search is an easy first step:

  http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=login&p_lang=english&p_d=trmk


-Dolph


On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 9:37 AM, Mark McLoughlin <markmc@redhat.com> wrote:
Hi

I've just added a new question to the FAQ:

  https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/LegalIssuesFAQ

  Q: What sort of things should I bear in mind when choosing a new
  project name, in order to reduce the risk of running into legal
  problems in the future?

But I don't have an answer!

I understand we can't cover all bases here. I understand that general
guidelines can't replace a full conflict search by counsel. However,
there are plenty of examples of why a general question to this would
help developers avoid making obvious mistakes. And we're likely to just
see more and more new project names, so we can't have the answer be "ask
Mr Name Expert whether the name is sane".

Without using any of our current project names as examples, would anyone
care to take a stab at answering this generally?

Thanks,
Mark.


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